. . .and, leaving Harvest, you enter the land called Plenty.
Here, roads are well maintained and footpaths easy,
the hostelries both clean and inexpensive,
the signposts frequent and the people friendly
and in their fine Cathedral you will find
the daily service always well attended
by a fair cross-section of the population.
Beyond this border lies the State of Hunger.
Here roads are watched and the traveller must be wary.
Avoid the towns and do not drink the water.
And be aware that signposts may be turned
to lead you into ambush or a road-block
where men in armbands armed with spikes and hammers
demand to see your non-existent papers
and it's said that you'll be bound to find
it's in the chancels of their ransacked churches
that they strip and crucify their captives.
A contest entry
- FreewritePrewrite by Ryno.
300 points, ended June 5, 10 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 11 of 11
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I agree with Ryno; very powerful underlying message, with wonderful contradictions between the two different lands. A sense of segregation almost. It's sad, because most of the time the lands aren't really bad, they just have that reputation so people treat it as such. Thank you for entering, and good luck
Jeanette*~ -
I really liked the powerful message that was penned inside this and the wonderful contradictions between the "two different lands".
Defiantly reflects powerfully on our world today and the seperation from region to region where life can be a different story then somewheres else.
A very strong write
Thanks for the entry.
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wow, this had a very powerful ending!
Jack -
WAY too true!
It's any country when the right mindset takes hold... when mass media has seduced enough people by forming and shaping public opinion. It seems impossible that such a thing could have happened in 1945 and it seems way WAY impossible that people are STILL pushing for state-run everything--thinking that their government is inherently a beneficial organism... not seeing it for the locus of power and corruption that only a guarded system of checks and balances can prevent. But no, the people cry, "GIVE US A KING!".
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wow.
I like this, I mean, I really like this. reminds me of america and mexico, or disneyland.... Also reminds me of nazi germany or the U.S.S.R. On one hand there's the facade of prosperity but underneath there's the truth. -
excellent, i love the juxtaposition of the two lands, but i really wish it were longer. i think this could be an amazing work if you added more to it
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Thought provoking, interesting, well written, philosophical, good usage of grammar, assonance and alliteration. Am delighted that an ab ab poet has commented that they find this to be poetry despite not being ab ab rhyme, when freeverse is written to this standard it has it's own natural rhythmn. The debate initiated by ab ab poets that freeverse isn't poetry is lost upon reading the likes of yourself, grm,Nicolette,Zayra Yves and oh so, so many others.
When a poet writes to an ab ab rhythm he is writing to a formulated rhythmn, when a freeverse poet writes he composes, orchestrates, his own rhythmn, you dear poet are able to write both uncompromized rhyme and create your own uncompromized self conducted freeverse. Kudos.
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I loved the irony with the Churches
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Yvette - many thanks for your compliments, however undeserved, and, of course, you're right concerning strict form and free form. Poetry is akin to music and, just as music includes the innovative riffs of jazz as well as the classical symphonic and other prescribed structures, so poetry extends from the pre-set forms to one-off innovations. I find it is often the poem rather than the poet which decides the form it takes and, sometimes, the subject itself calls for the one rather than the other (I've just posted a piece where this is a case in point - disorganised rhyming re someone trying to get their head toghether). Thank you, once again, for your so welcome encouragement. jimmy
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A little dark but very good.
It brought some very vivid pictures to my mind, Both warm and pleasant and gray and frightening. Very good Jimmy. I would not presume to change a thing.
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I was talking last night of free verse and how I find it hard to tell where verse ends and prose begins. This is not free verse! This is real poetry, that doesn't use rhyme. Wonder imagery and metaphor, very good piece my friend! To get three clappies from me without a rhyme is unheard of.
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